Two Tickets to Paris
by jcforever19
Summary: Dimitri goes back to St. Petersburg after the big Rasputin showdown. Will Anya chase after him or leave behind the best thing that's happened to her?


**This is my first time writing fanfic for Anastasia. But seeing as it is one of my three all time favorite movies, I figured I had to write an Anya/Dimitri oneshot sometime. They're too cute not to. After seeing the movie for the 123556th time yesterday night, I finally came out with this xD I also have been on a break from my regular fandom, Jimmy Neutron, so in the meanwhile, why not write for other fandoms?**

**I'd love reviews/criticism. Especially on characterization. **

* * *

The letters had stopped coming. They had stopped coming almost a year ago, but he hadn't lost that pang, or that little hole in his heart since…_then_. In more than one way, he'd lost _everything_ that night; ironic, since it was the night she'd found it _all_.

And Vlad too had chosen to stay in Paris with his beloved Sophie.

It had been a year since he'd been back in the confines of the winter palace. It seemed to haunt him so, but where else could he go?

He was a kitchen boy then, and he was something like that now. There weren't many living options for someone who had simply scrounged by for the latter half of his life on forged visas and cold soup.

That was what it had come down to. Of course, if you asked Anya, that wasn't it. But in his mind, that was just his place, his personal _curse_.

_Curse._

Of course that word brought about so many more memories. The words he associated with curse only bought him back to Anya, in the end.

Curse. The Romanov Curse. Saving Anya from falling to a watery death aboard the Tasha. Going to Paris. Figuring out she was no mere actress after all, she was really the heir to the Russian throne. Getting slapped. Seeing her coronation after refusing the money.

And the most painful part, running back from the train station at the first premonition that something had gone horribly wrong. Watching Rasputin's bones turn into sand and drift away before he briefly went unconscious. Anya watching him lie there until he showed some sign of life.

Her arms around him. Him starkly repeating her own words back to her, "All men are babies." They were two seconds away from a kiss. Pooka, that blasted dog he'd come to love coming in between them. Him picking up her crown and handing it to her.

"They're waiting for you." He remembered saying with bated breath.

"I guess they are." She had said, tears welling at the corner of her blue eyes.

That was the first sign something was wrong.

"So…this is goodbye?" He had said.

"No!" Anya protested, trying to pull him closer.

_No. This wasn't going as planned. He remembered not saying anything for a few seconds._

"I'll always be around. You've just found your grandmother, Princess."

Anya's expression soured. "Dimitri, I may not be able to come back to Saint Petersburg. You should stay."

"I don't belong here. But I'm not going to make you leave your family-"

"You didn't take the money."

"I didn't." He materialized his hands out of his pockets.

"Dimitri, stay-"

"I don't belong in the same world as you. You're royalty. Princesses don't marry kitchen boys. I don't belong here."

The words were spilling from his lips, words he didn't know he had the power to say to her. "Look me up if you're ever in Saint Petersburg-"

He had a horrible notion that this wasn't how it was supposed to end. For a brief moment, he had believed kitchen boys had a chance with princesses.

But he had come here to save the heir to the Russian throne, not the love of his life. He had come there out of duty, right? After all, he could never marry her, she was no ordinary girl. She was soon to be the empress of all Russia. At least that's what he'd come to believe over the past year. He'd made himself accept his own lie as to why he had saved her.

* * *

And she'd protested too. She'd followed him all the way to the train station, avoiding the commoners who swarmed around her, trying to catch a glimpse of the newly found heir.

She had had a slight feeling of deja vu, like she was reliving the past, as she watched him get on the train, and she ran after it, unable to catch him. He stared after her sadly, eyes transfixed. She was losing him, just like she'd lost her grandmother.

A year later, and it still pained her to relive that night. That idiot Dimitri, how dare he just leave like that? After all the tribulations, the journey, everything, he just gave up and went back because he believed something stupid, something that had obviously been ingrained into him, something idiotic like that phrase he'd thrown at her?

_Princesses don't marry kitchen boys._

She wouldn't stand for it. She'd stopped writing the letters a while back, he never replied anyways. The only way to knock some sense into him was to _go back_. All this time, she'd hoped he'd reply, or he'd come back. But he hadn't. So she'd arranged for a ship to take her back to Saint Petersburg.

* * *

An old woman in the street informed her he was still in the winter palace.

She couldn't help but suppress a smile at the woman hunching over quickly saying, "But you didn't hear it from me."

She found the palace with ease. He was sitting on the steps of the ballroom, gazing up at the portrait of her and Alexandra Feodorovna, her mother.

"I guess I was right. Men are babies after all."

He turned around dumbfounded.

"Anya?" He muttered.

"You said to look you up if I ever stopped by Saint Petersburg. Here I am."

She sat down next to him. "Just thought I'd prove you wrong about the whole princesses marrying kitchen boys thing. Vlad's on my side on this one. Always had been."

Dimitri managed a smile at the mention of Vlad. The image of Vlad tallying his and Anya's comebacks in that train came to mind.

"How's he been?"

"Fine. He misses you, you know."

"And the mutt?"

"_Pooka_?" She rolled her eyes. "Pooka is great."

"How about you?" She turned it back to him.

"Never better."

She smiled. "Liar."

And she took him in her arms and kissed him.

"I don't care what you say. I have two tickets to Paris, and you're coming back with me."


End file.
